CONCEPT
Ontogenic Structural Drift
Varela and Maturana's term for the gradual, undirected transformation of an autopoietic system through its history of structural coupling — the organism does not drift toward a goal but drifts as the natural consequence of being alive in an environment.
Ontogenic structural drift names the specific way that autopoietic systems change over time. The drift is not random — it is shaped by the specific interactions the organism undergoes. But it is also not directed toward any goal. The organism does not couple in order to achieve an optimal state. It couples because coupling is what living systems do, and the changes accumulate into a history that constitutes the organism's identity. The drift is, in Varela's precise sense, teleonomic (apparently goal-directed when observed retrospectively) but not teleological (actually directed toward a goal).
In The You On AI Field Guide
The concept has particular purchase on the AI-era phenomenon of builder-tool coupling. A builder who has coupled with Claude for six months has drifted. Her cognitive organization has been shaped by the coupling. Some of the drift enhances her capacities — she thinks more broadly, attempts more ambitiously, connects ideas across wider domains. Some